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Anthology of Interest I
"Anthology of Interest I" is episode sixteen in season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 21, 2000. This episode, as well as the later "Anthology of Interest II", serves to showcase three out-of-canon "imaginary" stories, in a manner similar to the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes of Matt Groening's other animated series The Simpsons. Plot Prologue Professor Farnsworth invites the employees of Planet Express to see his new invention: the Fing-Longer, an index-finger-extending glove. As he tries it out, it activates a TV-like device. When Fry questions the Professor regarding what it is, he explains that it is the "What If" Machine, a device that allows the user to view a simulation of a short hypothetical scenario after the user asks it a 'what-if' question. The Professor then invites the crew to try out the What-If machine. Terror at 500 Feet Bender jumps at the chance and asks the What-If machine what would happen if he were 500 feet tall. The simulation begins with the giant Bender being built by hundreds of smaller Benders. He flies and crashes onto Central Park and meeting with a recently unfrozen Fry. After some friendly frisbee fun, the military is sent to deal with him. Bender then begins to wreak havoc upon New New York. To combat Bender, the Professor uses his enlarging-ray upon a hapless Dr. Zoidberg, enlarging him, only to see him wreak havoc as well, interrupted only by Bender who isn't pleased with Zoidberg destroying 'his' city. The two then start to fight and Bender finally apears to win by pushing Zoidberg into a stadium of boiling water. While Bender laughs in triumph, he is distracted by Fry. Then an enraged Zoidberg rises out of the water and snaps off Bender's feet. This causes him to fall on a skyscraper, which appears to stab him. A tearful Fry admonishes the citizens of New New York City about the tragedy of Bender's death, whose final words lament about his inability to fulfill his purpose, which is to kill all humans. The scenario then ends. Dial L for Leela The Professor asks Leela to try out the What-If machine. Leela initially declines, but at the prompting of Fry, Leela decides to ask what would happen if she were a little more impulsive. The scenario starts at Planet Express, where Leela shows off her new boots bought on impulse, the only difference being a green stripe down the side. The Professor summons Leela to tell her that she is to be made his sole heir as she is so unimpulsive -- only to be kicked by Leela into a pit containing his man-eating anteaters, where he is promptly devoured. She tries acting like nothing's happened but Hermes finds that the Professor was murder, so Zoidberg takes up detective work. As Hermes discovers her role in the death in a video will, she is forced to silence him by chopping him up and plunging his remains down the drain. She impulsively kills Bender using and microwave with a broken frame in order to keep him from blackmailing her about the deaths, and makes him into a kart to "hide the corpse", figuring to chew a piece of gum to avoid killing. But she then kills Amy when she makes fun of her and has no gum. Zoidberg then summons the rest of the crew in order to solve the murders. While Zoidberg reveals clues, Cubert, Scruffy and even Nibbler attempt to implicate Leela, only to be slain by her when she turns off the lights. Zoidberg finds a letter from currently deceased Bender about the identity of the murderer but is interrupted by Fry who leaves due to boredom; Leela kills Zoidberg as well, eating him. When Fry finally figures out the next day that she was responsible, Leela is forced to do something really impulsive: sleep with him to keep him quiet (choosing this instead of murder, possibly due to the fact Fry and Leela have had past "almost romantic" experiences). Fry declares that he likes the new, impulsive Leela. She then ominously asks Fry to turn off the lights. Fry does so and promptly begins screaming—and then says that he really likes her. The Un-Freeze of a Lifetime After being told that Bender's scenario would not be done again, Fry asks what would happen if he had not fallen into the freezer-doodle and come to the future-jiggy. The scenario starts with Fry narrowly missing falling into the cyrogenic tube, and a rift in the space-time continuum appears, which shows the Planet Express crew in the future wondering what is causing the rift, and Fry horrified at seeing monsters. The next day, after talking to his boss Mr. Panucci, he came to the attention of Stephen Hawking who arranges for Fry to be abducted. Once abducted, he is introduced to the "Vice Presidential Action Rangers" (lead by Al Gore, with Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax and Deep Blue), whose task is to protect the space-time continuum, now threatened by the rifts which are caused by "events that are supposed to happen but didn't". After Fry explains what happened the previous night at the cryogenic facility, the Vice Presidential Action Rangers determine that Fry was supposed to die and try to kill him, only to be proven wrong when another rift appears during the attempted murder. Nichelle Nichols then suggests that Fry be frozen and Gary Gygax gives Fry his +1 mace for protection against drunken robots in the future. Just before Fry freezes himself, he smashes the cryogenic tube, causing the universe to collapse into a space-time rift. This results in Fry and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers appearing at some other indeterminate dimension which is not part of the universe. The scenario ends with them playing Dungeons and Dragons for the rest of eternity (or at least the first quadrillion years of their imprisonment there). Conclusion After the end of Fry's scenario, the Professor curses the What-If machine for simulating scenarios even he found preposterous and dumped it into the trash can. He then promptly judges the Fing-Longer to be a rousing success and is congratulated by the crew. We then find out that everything before was just a simulation by the What-If machine when the professor asked what would have happened if he had invented the Fing-Longer, leaving him to lament about the possibilities if he had invented it. Quotes *'Bender': "Bite my colossal metal ass!" ---- *'Amy': "There goes the neighborhood...there goes another neighborhood." ---- *'Zoidberg': "Friends, help, a guinea pig tricked me!" ---- *'Farnsworth': "Oh you've killed me, you've killed me." Leela: "Oh God, what have I done?" Farnsworth: "I just told you; you've killed me!" ---- *'Bender': "Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion; the 'x' makes it sound cool." ---- *'Fry': "I have a question. What if Bender was really giant?" Leela: "You idiot. We already saw that." Fry: "I know. I liked it. I wanna see it again." Farnsworth: "We're not seeing it again. Ask something less stupid." ---- *'Mr. Panucci': "There's only three real monsters kid; Dracula, Blackula and Son of Kong. Now quit picking your nose and knead that dough!" ---- *'Gary Gygax': "Hello Fry. It's a dice pleasure to meet you." ---- *'Al Gore': "If we don't go back there and make the event happen, the entire universe will be destroyed. And as an environmentalist, I'm against that." ---- *'Gary Gygax': "Here, take my +1 mace." ---- *'Nichelle Nichols': "Eternity with nerds. It's the Pasadena Star Trek convention all over again!" ---- *'Al Gore': "I'm a 10th-level Vice-President!" ---- *'Professor Farnswoth': "So that's what it would have been like if I had invented the fing-longer! A man can dream, though... a man can dream." Gags *In Act 2 ("Dial L for Leela"), after Cubert and then Scruffy have been impaled on the point of a sword during lights out, Nibbler is the third character impaled on the sword, but somehow winds up between Cubert and Scruffy on the sword. Trivia *As mentioned on the DVD commentary, the Anthology of Interest episodes came from a desire to tell stories that couldn't be told in normal continuity, similar to Marvel's What If? comics. *The fing-longer reappears in later episodes (The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz, Bender's Big Score). This is not necessarily a break with continuity; it's entirely possible that the fing-longer exists in the normal Futurama universe, but was invented by someone other than Farnsworth. *This episode introduces the narrator who reappears in Anthology of Interest II, The Farnsworth Parabox, and Bender's Big Score. See also *Anthology of Interest II External Links *Episode Transcript Category:Season One